Divorce records shed light on Yang

Source says murder suspect acted out before '90 marriage

March 10, 2009|By Jeff Long | Tribune staff reporter

Marni Yang displayed behavior that her former husband said made him uncomfortable even during their courtship as she threatened suicide if they broke up by scattering pills around the bathroom, a source said.

Yen Yang portrayed his ex-wife as clinging to him, the source told the Tribune.Marni Yang, charged this week with killing the pregnant girlfriend of former Bear Shaun Gayle in a jealous rage, never was violent toward her ex-husband.

Through the source Yen Yang declined to comment. He has been living in Philadelphia for several years and remarried. The couple have an 8-month-old daughter. "He's been happy," the source said.

Details of the tumultuous divorce released Friday by the Cook County Circuit Court show the couple married June 10, 1990, in Skokie. They separated in April 1995, and Marni Yang filed for divorce in June 1997.

An emergency order of protection against Yen Yang was granted Dec. 31, 2001, and extended to Feb. 11, 2002, according to records. It covered Marni Yang and the couple's three children: boy and girl twins, now 18, and a boy, 13.

Yen Yang was living in Lowell, Mass., according to records, and was prohibited from entering her home in the 5100 block of North St. Louis Avenue in Chicago or tampering with a 1999 Montero.

Marni Yang wrote in her petition for the protection order that he threatened the children in a Dec. 10, 2001, phone call.

It wasn't the only time she was involved with a protection order. She sought an order against a Chicago police officer in 1998, the same year the officer obtained an emergency order of protection against her after she was accused of sending a "harassing letter" to his wife.

The source declined to comment on the order against Yen Yang, saying it was not relevant to the charges against his ex-wife. The source said he has not been in contact with his children for several years.

Yen Yang fears retribution against his new family if Marni Yang is released, the source said. Contacted by police early in the investigation into the death of Rhoni Reuter and her unborn child, he refused to talk until they threatened to obtain a court order, the source said.

Lake County State's Atty. Michael Waller said Marni Yang exhibited a pattern of jealousy and harassment.

When Yang, who grew up in Skokie, pursued her future husband while they attended Illinois State University in the late 1980s, she was somewhat introverted, but he believed she had a possessive side, the source said. He said she followed him to his volleyball games and to classes, the source said.

They married while she was pregnant but he said they divorced because of her affairs with other men, including at least one Chicago police officer, according to the source. She met that officer during her work with Chicago's community policing program, the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy, the source said (this sentence has been added to this text).

To Yen Yang, the program changed his wife in ways that eventually helped end the marriage. "Being around powerful people started to mold her into what she is now," the source said.

The source said one officer decided to break off the affair after his wife became pregnant. Marni Yang threatened him and his family, according to the source and the officer.